Instead of casting a wistful glance 10 at all the species we've left in the dust I.Q.-wise, it implicitly asks what the real 11 of our own intelligence might be.
Getting enough to eat and enjoying the safety and comfort of living fully on the grid is certainly a good thing—but it does carry an environmental price.
In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters.
Not until the war France in 1697 did William III persuade Parliament to create a professional standing army, and Parliaments price for doing so was to keep the army under tight legislative control.